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Tuesday, October 29, 2013

THE REAL KING DAVID

King David was reportedly described by God as "a man after my own heart."

King David reportedly fought Goliath, wrote the Psalms, loved Jonathan the son of King Saul, had an affair with Bathsheba and was the ancestor of Jesus.

The Bible contradicts itself because, according to the Bible, Goliath was killed by a warrior named Elhanan.

The Bible never actually says that David wrote the Psalms.

David became King as the result of the killing of a lot of the members of King Saul's family, including Jonathan.

The Bible admits that David was working for Saul's enemies, the Philistines.

Archaeologists have unearthed 'a palace' in what MAY be the fortified Judean city of Shaarayim, where David is said to have fought Goliath.dailymail. "Not all agree that the ruins found in Khirbet Qeiyafa are of the biblical town Shaarayim, let alone the palace of ancient Israel's most famous king."Are the ruins found in Israel really his palace

David took over Jerusalem, "displacing its ancient native inhabitants."

"The people didn't love David - they couldn't wait to get rid of him."

"The findings at Khirbet Qeiyafa - a fortified hilltop city about 19 miles (30 kilometers) southwest of Jerusalem - indicate that David, who defeated Goliath in the Bible, ruled a kingdom with a great political organization, the excavators say."

Prof. Emeritus of Jewish History at Tel Aviv University, Nadav Na’aman and Ido Koch, a Ph.D. candidate in Archaeology and Biblical History at Tel Aviv University, believe that the Khirbet Qeiyafa ruins are Canaanite.

Professor Israel Finkelstein of Tel Aviv University suggests that it is a strong possibility that the Khirbet Qeiyafa ruins are Canaanite.

"A very similar layer, with almost exact pottery types and other finds hinting in this direction, was found in the nearby Canaanite dig in Bet Shemesh directed by Prof. Shlomo Bonimovitz and Zvi Lederman of Tel Aviv University."

"While the Bible says David and Solomon built the kingdom of Israel into a powerful and prestigious empire stretching from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River, from Damascus to the Negev, there's a slight problem - namely, that despite decades of searching, archaeologists had found no solid evidence that David or Solomon ever built anything."

Had found no solid evidence?According to National geographic, Eilat Mazar works for two organizations "dedicated to the assertion of Israel's territorial rights."

In 2005, Eilat Mazar claimed she might have found the ruined remains of King David's palace.

According to National Geographic, Israeli archaeologist David Ilan of Hebrew Union College is among the many who doubt that Mazar has in fact found King David's palace.

"My gut tells me this is an eighth- or ninth-century building," he says, constructed a hundred years or more after Solomon died in 930 B.C.

National Geographic quotes Israel Finklestein.

Tel Aviv University's Israel Finkelstein is among those who point out that the so-called "Solomonic" buildings, excavated at Hazor, Gezer, and Megiddo, were constructed well after David and Solomon's time.

According to Finkelstein, King David's Jerusalem was little more than a "hill-country village."

David's kingdom would consist of "500 people with sticks in their hands shouting and cursing and spitting."

Most Israelis apparently were Khazars who converted to the Jewish religion. The Palestinians are the people most likely to have links to the Kingdom of David.
National Geographic has awarded grants to two archaeologists,Yosef Garfinkel and Thomas Levy.

National Geographic reports that, in the Elah Valley, where David allegedly slew Goliath, Hebrew University professor Yosef Garfinkel claims to have found the remains of a 'city' dating to the time that David reigned.

University of California, San Diego professor Thomas Levyhas been excavating a 'copper-smelting operation', in an area linked to David's alleged enemies, the Edomites.

Levy dates one period of copper production to the tenth century B.C.

This was when, according to the Bible, the Edomites lived in the area.

But, scholars like Finkelsteinstate that Edom did not emerge until two centuries later.

Levy and Garfinkel support their claims with data including pottery remnants and radiocarbon dating of olive and date pits found at the sites.

David killed Goliath?

"Maybe Goliath never existed," Garfinkel tells National Geographic.

Garfinkel learnt about a nine foot high megalithic wall and began digging in 2008.

He found buildings which carbon-14 analysis dated to around 1000 B.C. He found bones from cattle, goats, sheep, and fish - but no pig bones.

This suggested Judaeans may have lived here.

A clay pottery object was found with writing that appears to be a proto-Canaanite script.

This suggested a tenth-century B.C. complex Judaean society of the sort which Finkelstein claimed did not exist. If the Kingdom of David existed it was a very tiny place.

According to National Geographic, Yossi Garfinkel originally announced his conclusions "despite the fact that he had only four olive pits on which to base his dating, a single inscription of a highly ambiguous nature, and a mere 5 percent of his site excavated."

According to archaeologist David Ilan, "Yossi has an agenda - partly ideological, but also personal. He's a very smart and ambitious guy. Finkelstein's the big gorilla, and the young bucks think he's got a monopoly over biblical archaeology. So they want to dethrone him."

King David is important to Moslems, who call him Daoud, and to Jews and Christians.

Daniel Polisar is president of the Shalem Center, the Israeli research institute that helped fund Eilat Mazar's excavation work.

National Geographic quotes Polisar as saying: "You take David and his kingdom out of the book, and you have a different book.

"The narrative is no longer a historical work, but a work of fiction. And then the rest of the Bible is just a propagandistic effort to create something that never was. And if you can't find the evidence for it, then it probably didn't happen. That's why the stakes are so high."

According to national Geographic, the books of the Old Testament telling the story of David and Solomon were probably written at least 300 years after the event.

No other texts from that time exist to back up the story.

National Geographic points out that scholars have failed to provide proof that there really was an Abraham, a Moses, an Exodus or a conquest of Jericho.

Yigael Yadin, an Israeli, uncovered city gates at Hazor in the late 1950s.

He claimed the gates belonged to the tenth-century B.C. empire of Solomon.

Why? Because that was what it said in the First Book of Kings.

The First Book of Kings was added long after Solomon died in 930 B.C.

According to National geographic, unless new evidence emerges, we're left with tenth-century B.C. biblical world that Finkelstein first proposed in a 1996 paper.

That means no large Kingdom of David with fine buildings, but instead a collection of small kingdoms including Philistines, Moabites and Aramaeans.

What about the Palestinians?

East Jerusalem resident and archaeology professor Hani Nur el-Din is quoted by National Geographic as saying, "When I see Palestinian women making the traditional pottery from the early Bronze Age, when I smell the taboon bread baked in the same tradition as the fourth or fifth millennium B.C., this is the cultural DNA. In Palestine there's no written document, no historicity - but still, it's history."

Anyone seen the Kingdom of David?

There is a problem with carbon dating.

National Geographic quotes Eilat mazar as saying: "Carbon-14 doesn't help you solve all this controversy.

"You have the plus or minus" - a margin of error of about 40 years.

"You have different laboratories bringing different interpretations. You have debates about the whole C-14 issue."

Finkelstein says: "Think of the Bible the way you would a stratified archaeological site.

"Some of it was written in the eighth century B.C., some the seventh, and then going all the way to the second B.C. So 600 years of compilation. This doesn't mean that the story doesn't come from antiquity. But the reality presented in the story is a later reality. David, for example, is a historical figure. He did live in the tenth century B.C.

"I accept the descriptions of David as some sort of leader of an upheaval group, troublemakers who lived on the margins of society. But not the golden city of Jerusalem, not the description of a great empire in the time of Solomon. When the authors of the text describe that, they have in their eyes the reality of their own time, the Assyrian Empire.

"Now, Solomon. I think I destroyed Solomon, so to speak. Sorry for that! But take Solomon, dissect it. Take the great visit of the Queen of Sheba - an Arabian queen coming to visit, bringing all sorts of exotic commodities to Jerusalem.

"This is a story which is an impossibility to think about before 732 B.C., before the beginning of Arabian trade under Assyrian domination. Take the story of Solomon as the great, you know, trainer in horses and chariots and big armies and so on. The world behind Solomon is the world of the Assyrian century."

What about Tom Levy's copper mining?

Finkelstein says, "I don't buy that it's from the tenth century B.C. There's no way people lived on this site during production. The fire, the toxic fumes—forget it! Instead, look at the fortress of En Hazeva on our side of the Jordan River, built by the Assyrians on the main road to Edom.

"I see Tom's building as an eighth-century Assyrian fortress parallel to the other one. And look, at the end of the day, his is a marginal site. It's not a stratified city with many eras, like Megiddo and Tel Rehov. Taking a pile of slag and making it the center of the discussion of biblical history—forget it, no way, I reject this absolutely!"

What about Garfinkel's 'city'?

Finkelstein says: "Look, you'll never catch me saying, 'I've found one olive pit at a stratum in Megiddo, and this olive pit - which goes against hundreds of carbon-14 determinations - is going to decide the fate of Western civilization.' "

The writing found at the site? Probably Philistine.

According to National geographic, even if Mazar, Levy andGarfinkel can prove their findings, "this does not a glorious biblical dynasty make."

National geographic quotes Finkelstein as saying: "Look, when I'm doing research, I have to distinguish between the culture of David and the historical David.

"David is extremely important for my cultural identity.... I'm proud that this nobody from nowhere became the center of Western tradition."

Goliath of Gath, as described in Scripture, is explicitly linked to the bloodline of The Watchers / The Annunaki, making David's victory over the giant of great historical and political significance.

Genesis 6King James Version (KJV)6 And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,

2 That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.

3 And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.

4 There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.

27 And they told him, and said, We came unto the land whither thou sentest us, and surely it floweth with milk and honey; and this is the fruit of it.

28 Nevertheless the people be strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled, and very great: and moreover we saw the children of Anak there.

29 The Amalekites dwell in the land of the south: and the Hittites, and the Jebusites, and the Amorites, dwell in the mountains: and the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and by the coast of Jordan.

30 And Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it.

31 But the men that went up with him said, We be not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we.

32 And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched unto the children of Israel, saying, The land, through which we have gone to search it, is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of a great stature.

33 And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.

I quote The Enemy (Wikipedia) for this next part, as I am not an expert:

"According to the Babylonian Talmud (Sotah 42b) Goliath was a son of Orpah, the sister-in-law of Ruth, David's own great grandmother (Ruth → Obed → Jesse → David). Ruth Rabbah, a haggadic and homiletic interpretation of the Book of Ruth, makes the blood-relationship even closer, considering Orpah and Ruth to have been full sisters. Orpah was said to have made a pretense of accompanying Ruth but after forty paces left her. Thereafter she led a dissolute life.

According to the Jerusalem Talmud Goliath was born by polyspermy, and had about one hundred fathers.

The Talmud stresses the thrasonical Goliath's ungodliness: his taunts before the Israelites included the boast that it was he who had captured the Ark of the Covenant and brought it to the temple of Dagon; and his challenges to combat were made at morning and evening in order to disturb the Israelites in their prayers.

His armour weighed 60 tons, according to rabbi Hanina; 120, according to rabbi Abba bar Kahana; and his sword, which became the sword of David, had marvellous powers.

On his death it was found that his heart carried the image of Dagon, who thereby also came to a shameful downfall.

In Pseudo-Philo, believed to have been composed between 135 BCE. and 70 CE, David picks up seven stones and writes on them the names of his fathers, his own name, and the name of God, one name per stone;

then, speaking to Goliath, he says "Hear this word before you die: were not the two woman from whom you and I were born, sisters? And your mother was Orpah and my mother Ruth ..."

After David strikes Goliath with the stone he runs to Goliath before he dies and Goliath says "Hurry and kill me and rejoice." and David replies "Before you die, open your eyes and see your slayer."

Goliath sees an angel and tells David that it is not he who has killed him but the angel.

Pseudo-Philo then goes on to say that the angel of the Lord changes David's appearance so that no one recognizes him, and thus Saul asks who he is.

For me the Bible serves only one purpose that of elevating my morality and conscience. All those "Old Testament" stories are nothing but oral tradition. The New Testament to some extent are more provable but even then still stews in a broth of oral tradition.

I hold biblical trajectories as an exercise in the consequences of good and evil. I also concede that a good portion of biblical narratives may well be good tales told by moonlight. But having said that, there are lessons to be learnt by it.

Stories have helped shape our humanity and upbringing to some useful purpose. In the Bible, it is the message I come away with that I treasure and try to teach to others.

I adore the concept of one man that came to save the world and atone for all our sins, I take the moral to heart for the simple reason that by understanding it, it makes for a better world.

I do not know if a Good, Loving God exists but I love the concept that He does. Ditto Jesus Christ. I'm into the message and the moral profit our world stands to rip from it. Biblical origins and historical fallacies are of no major importance to me as much as the morals of goodness that some portion of the Bible preach.

I do not pay the Old Testament much mind because of its dominant theme which embeds a vengeful warrior god. It oozes blood, death, mayhem and treachery and serves as a very bad example to our world. It is evil personified. Yet, understanding its diabolical ramifications and destructive tendencies bear its own message.

The New Testament bears a memorable and tranquil narrative and is such a good read for me. The bit that tarnishes it for me is the book of Revelation which I find so out of character with that tranquility.

There is an overlay of superstition in both this book and the Bible that I find unpalatable and which diminishes my takeaway from it. But still, I continue to lay the chaff by the wayside as I endeavor to extract the wheat for the goodness of the whole.

Seek out the moral of the story and lay everything else by the wayside.

In 1992 Philip R. Davies, a professor of Biblical Studies at the University of Sheffield, provoked a storm that still rages in academic circles by arguing that both archaeological evidence and clear thinking about the Bible narrative forced one to conclude that the Israel of the Bible never existed.

If King Solomon is to be properly identified as an adaptation of the Pharaoh Amenhotep III, then the source of his predecessor, King David, should also be found in Egypt. Consistent with this premise, Osman has compared the account in the Bible of David and his wars with the exploits of Amenhotep III's great grandfather, the 18th Dynasty Pharaoh Thutmose III.(1) Not only are their achievements equivalent, but so are their very names.